Friday, October 28, 2011
U.S. Congress mentions Sharia Law
The other day I needed to spend some time at a neighbor's apartment and they subscribe to cable TV (we do not) and have accesss to C-Span so I listened for several hours to a broadcast of a Foreign Affairs session where Hillary Clinton spoke. One of the congressmen spoke at some length about his concern over the spread of Sharia Law in North Africa and elsewhere. He mentioned (or asserted) that Sharia permits the rape of the wives of defeated adversaries as part of the punishment. I am not certain how accurate it is to say that Sharia itself promotes such a punishment and perhaps those who practice such things falsely use Sharia as an excuse. I have heard that Qur'anic law forbids the execution of a virgin woman and therefore in some places it a practice to rape a virgin prior to her execution. I am reminded of the Hindu woman bandit, Phulan Devi, who was raped by many men in a certain town and returned with her gang to execute the men of that town. I suspect that some sects of Hindus in some regions have been influenced by the practices of some Muslims and those Hindus will practice a form of honor killing. Honor killings are not committed in every Muslim society and I read that they are unknown in Tunisia as one example.
I do find it interesting that congressmen in the US House of Representatives would discuss some aspect of Islam at length. It is quite understandable that Americans see Islam as an ideological threat and it is equally understandable that many Muslim societies view the colonial aggression of the unbelievers as an ideological threat.
The transcript of that meeting is possibly available on-line http://www.c-spanvideo.org/videoLibrary/ possibly here: http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/302353-1
